This winter the Newthorpes spent abroad. Mr. Newthorpe was in very
doubtful health when he went to Ullswater, just before Egremont's
return to England, and by the end of the autumn his condition was
such as to cause a renewal of Annabel's former fears. On a quick
decision, they departed for Cannes, and remained there till early in
the following April.

'There's a sort of absurdity,' Mr. Newthorpe remarked, 'in living
when you can think of nothing but how you're to save your life.
Better have done with it, I think. It strikes me as an impiety, too,
to go playing at hide-and-seek with the gods.'

They came back to Eastbourne, which, on the whole, seemed to suit
the invalid during these summer months. He did little now but muse
over a few favourite books and listen to his daughter's
conversation. Comparatively a young man, his energies were spent,
his life was behind him. To Annabel it was infinitely sorrowful to
have observed this rapid process of decay. She could not be
persuaded that the failure of his powers was anything more than
temporary. But her father lost no opportunity of warning her that
she deceived herself. He had his reasons for doing so.

His temper was perfect: his outlook on the world remained that of a
genial pessimist, a type of man common enough in our day. He seemed
to find a pleasure in urbanely mocking at his own futility.

'I am the sort of man,' he once said, 'of whom Tourgueneff would
make an admirable study. There's tragedy in me, if you have the eyes
to see it. I don't think any one can help feeling kindly towards me.
I don't think any one can altogether despise me. Yet my life is a
mere inefficacy.'

'You have had much enjoyment in your life, father,' Annabel replied,
'and enjoyment of the purest kind. In our age of the world I think
that must be a sufficient content.'

'Why, there you've hit it, Bell. 'Tis the age. There's somebody else
I know who had better take warning by me. But I think he has done.'

They were talking thus as they sat alone in one of the places of
shelter on the Parade. Other people had departed on the serious
business of dining; but the evening was beautiful, and these two
were tempted to remain and watch the sea.

'Yes. I wonder very much what he will be at my age. He won't be
anything particular, of course.'

'No, I don't suppose he will do anything remarkable,' the girl
assented impartially.

'Yet he might have done,' recommenced her father, with some
annoyance, as if his remark had not elicited the answer he looked
for. 'This mill-work of his I consider mere discipline. I should
have thought two years of it enough; three certainly ought to be. A
fourth, and he will never do anything else.'

'There's only one thing for such a fellow to do nowadays. Let him
write something.'

'Write?' Annabel mused. 'Yes, I suppose there is nothing else. Yet
he happens to have sufficient means.'

'Do you mean it for an epigram? Well, it will pass. True, there's
the hardship of his position. There's nothing for him to do but to
write, yet he is handicapped by his money. I should have done
something worth the doing, if I had had to write for bread and
cheese. Let him show that he has something in him, in spite of the
fact that he has never gone without his dinner. Yes, but that would
prove him an extraordinary man, and we agree that he is nothing of
the kind.'

'Haven't you ever felt a sort of uneasy shame when you have heard of
another acquaintance taking up the pen?'

'Of course I have. I've felt the same when I've heard of someone
being born.'

'Precisely. It would be disagreeable to me if I heard that Mr.
Egremont was writing a novel. If he published anything very good, it
wouldn't trouble one so much after the event. I don't see why he
should write. I think he'd better continue to give half his day to
something practical, and the other half to the pleasures of a man of
culture. It will preserve his balance.'

Towards the end of August, Mr. and Mrs. Dalmaine were at Eastbourne
for a few days. Paula spent one hour with her cousin in private, no
more. The two had drifted further apart than ever. But in that one
hour Paula had matter enough for talk. There had been a General
Election during the summer, and Mr. Dalmaine had victoriously
retained his seat for Vauxhall. His wife could speak of nothing
else.

'What I would have given if you could have seen me canvassing, Bell!
Now I've found the one thing that I can do really well. I wish
Parliaments were annual!'

'I don't understand. You know I never do understand your clever
remarks, Bell; please speak quite simply, will you? Oh, but the
canvassing! Of course I didn't get on with people's wives as well as
with people themselves; women never do, you know. You should have
heard me arguing questions with working men and shopkeepers! Mr.
Dalmaine once told me I'd better keep out of politics, as I only
made a bungle of it; but I've learnt a great deal since then. He
admits now that I really do understand the main questions. Of course
it's all his teaching. He puts things so clearly, you know. I
suppose there's no one in the House who makes such clear speeches as
he does.'

'Wasn't it! Fifteen hundred majority! Then we drove all about the
borough, and I had to bow nicely to people who waved their hats and
shouted. It was a new sensation; I think I never enjoyed anything so
much in my life. He is enormously popular, my husband. And everybody
says he is doing an enormous lot of good. You know, Bell, it was a
mere chance that he isn't in the Ministry! His name was mentioned;
we know it for a fact. There's no doubt whatever he'll be in next
time, if the Liberal Government keeps up. It is so annoying that
Parliaments generally last so long! Think what that will be, when he
is a Minister! I shouldn't wonder if you come to see me some day in
Downing Street, Bell.'

'That's good of you! He's thinking of publishing a volume of those
that deal with factory legislation. You should have heard what they
said about him, at the election time!'

Paula was still charming, but it must be confessed a trifle
vulgarised. Formerly she had not been vulgar at all; at present one
discerned unmistakably the influence of her husband, and of the
world in which she lived. In person, she showed the matron somewhat
prematurely; one saw that in another ten years she would be portly;
her round fair face would become too round and too pinky. Mentally,
she was at length formed, and to Mr. Dalmaine was due the credit of
having formed her.

This gentleman did his kinsfolk the honour of calling upon them. He
had grown a little stouter; he bore himself with conscious dignity;
you saw that he had not much time, nor much attention, to bestow
upon unpolitical people. He was suave and abrupt by turns; he used
his hands freely in conversing. Mr. Newthorpe smiled much during the
interview with him, and, a few hours later, when alone with Annabel,
he suddenly exclaimed:

'True again. And it would be foolish to wish her miserable. Bell,
let us join hands and go to the old ferryman's boat together.'

'It would cost me no pang, father. Still we will walk a little
longer on the sea-shore.'

And whilst this conversation was going on, Mr. and Mrs. Dalmaine sat
after dinner on the balcony of their hotel, talking occasionally.
Dalmaine smoked a cigar: his eyes betrayed the pleasures of
digestion and thought on high matters of State.

Paula was quiet for a few moments, then talked as brightly as ever.
. . .

One day close upon the end of September, Mrs. Ormonde had to pay a
visit to the little village of West Dean, which is some four miles
distant from Eastbourne, inland and westward. Business of a domestic
nature took her thither; she wished to visit a cottage for the
purpose of seeing a girl whom she thought of engaging as a servant.
The day was very beautiful; she asked the Newthorpes to accompany
her on the drive. Mr. Newthorpe preferred to remain at home; Annabel
accepted the invitation.

The road was uphill, until the level of the Downs was reached; then
it went winding along, with fair stretches of scenery on either
hand, between fields fragrant of Autumn, overhead the broad soft
purple sky. First East Dean was passed, a few rustic houses
nestling, as the name implies, in its gentle hollow. After that,
another gradual ascent, and presently the carriage paused at a point
of the road immediately above the village to which they were going.

The desire to stop was simultaneous in Mrs. Ormonde and her
companion; their eyes rested on as sweet a bit of landscape as can
be found in England, one of those scenes which are typical of the
Southern countries. It was a broad valley, at the lowest point of
which lay West Dean. The hamlet consists of very few houses, all so
compactly grouped about the old church that from this distance it
seemed as if the hand could cover them. The roofs were overgrown
with lichen, yellow on slate, red on tiles. In the farmyards were
haystacks with yellow conical coverings of thatch. And around all
closed dense masses of chestnut foliage, the green just touched with
gold. The little group of houses had mellowed with age; their
guarded peacefulness was soothing to the eye and the spirit. Along
the stretch of the hollow the land was parcelled into meadows and
tilth of varied hue. Here was a great patch of warm grey soil, where
horses were drawing the harrow; yonder the same work was being done
by sleek black oxen. Where there was pasture, its chalky-brown
colour told of the nature of the earth which produced it. A vast
oblong running right athwart the far side of the valley had just
been strewn with loam; it was the darkest purple. The bright yellow
of the 'kelk' spread in several directions; and here and there rose
thin wreaths of white smoke, where a pile of uprooted couch-grass
was burning; the scent was borne hither by a breeze that could be
scarcely felt.

'A kindness, Mrs. Ormonde!' said Annabel. 'Let me stay here whilst
you drive down into the village. I don't wish to see the people
there just now. To sit here and look down on that picture will do me
good.'

'By all means. But I dare say I shall be half an hour. It will take
ten minutes to drive down.'

Now it happened that on this same September day a young man left
Brighton and started to walk eastward along the coast. He had come
into Brighton from London the evening before, having to pay a visit
to the family of an acquaintance of his who had recently died in
Pennsylvania, and who, when dying, had asked him to perform this
office on his return to England. He was no stranger to Brighton; he
knew that, if one is obliged to visit the place, it is well to be
there under cover of the night and to depart as speedily as possible
from amid its vulgar hideousness. So, not later than eight on the
following morning, he had left the abomination behind him, and was
approaching Rottingdean.

His destination was Eastbourne; the thought of going thither on foot
came to him as he glanced at a map of the coast whilst at breakfast.
The weather was perfect, and the walk would be full of interest.

One would have said that he had a mind very free from care. For the
most part he stepped on at a good round pace, observing well;
sometimes he paused, as if merely to enjoy the air. He was in
excellent health; he smiled readily.

At Rottingdean he lingered for awhile. A soft mist hung all around;
sky and sea were of a delicate blurred blue-grey, the former mottled
in places. The sun was not visible, but its light lay in one long
gleaming line out on the level water; beyond, all was vapour-veiled.
There were no breakers; now and then a larger ripple than usual
splashed on the beach, and that was the only sound the sea gave. It
was full tide; the water at the foot of the cliffs was of a
wonderful green, pellucid, delicate, through which the chalk was
visible, with dark masses of weed here and there. Swallows in great
numbers flew about the edge, and thistle-down floated everywhere.
From the fields came a tinkle of sheep-bells.

The pedestrian sighed when he rose to continue his progress. It was
noticeable that, as he went on, he lost something of his
cheerfulness of manner; probably the early rising and the first
taste of exercise had had their effect upon him, and now he was
returning to his more wonted self. The autumn air, the sun-stained
mist, the silent sea, would naturally incline to pensiveness one who
knew that mood.

The air was unimaginably calm; the thistle-down gave proof that only
the faintest breath was stirring. On the Downs beyond Rottingdean
lay two or three bird-catchers, prone as they watched the semicircle
of call-birds in cages, and held their hand on the string which
closed the nets. The young man spoke a few words with one of these,
curious about his craft.

He came down upon Newhaven, and halted in the town for refreshment;
then, having loitered a little to look at the shipping, he climbed
the opposite side of the valley, and made his way as far as Seaford.
Thence another climb, and a bend inland, for the next indentation of
the coast was Cuckmere Haven, and the water could only be crossed at
some distance from the sea. The country through which the Cuckmere
flowed had a melancholy picturesqueness. It was a great reach of
level meadows, very marshy, with red-brown rushes growing in every
ditch, and low trees in places, their trunks wrapped in bright
yellow lichen; nor only their trunks, but the very smallest of their
twigs was so clad. All over the flats were cows pasturing, black
cows, contrasting with flocks of white sheep, which were gathered
together, bleating. The coarse grass was sun-scorched; the slope of
the Downs on either side showed the customary chalky green. The mist
had now all but dispersed, yet there was still only blurred
sunshine. Rooks hovered beneath the sky, heavily, lazily, and
uttered their long caws.

The Cuckmere was crossed, and another ascent began. The sea was now
hidden; the road would run inland, cutting off the great angle made
by Beachy Head. The pedestrian had made notes of his track; he knew
that he was now approaching a village called West Dean. He had
lingered by the Cuckmere; now he braced himself. And he came in
sight of West Dean as the church clock struck four.

He wished now to make speed to Eastbourne, but the loveliness of the
hollow above which the road ran perforce checked him; he paced
forward very slowly, his eyes bent upon the hamlet. Something moved,
near to him. He looked round. A lady was standing in the road, and,
of all strange things, a lady of whom at that moment he was
thinking.

'By what inconceivable chance does this happen, Miss Newthorpe?' he
said, taking her offered hand.

'Surely the question would come with even more force from me,'
Annabel made answer. 'You might have presumed me to be in England,
Mr. Egremont; I, on the other hand, certainly imagined that you were
beyond the Atlantic.'

'I have walked from Brighton--one of the most delightful walks I
ever took.'

'A long one, surely. I am waiting for Mrs. Ormonde. She is with the
carriage below. I chose to wait here, to feast my eyes.'

Both turned again to the picture. The two did not sort ill together.
Annabel was very womanly, of fair, thoughtful countenance, and she
stood with no less grace, though maturer, than by the ripples of
Ullswater, four years ago. She had the visage of a woman whose
intellect is highly trained, a face sensitive to every note of the
soul's music, yet impressed with the sober consciousness which comes
of self-study and experience. A woman, one would have said, who
could act as nobly as she could speak, yet who would prefer both to
live and to express herself in a minor key. And Egremont was not
unlike her in some essential points. The turn for irony was more
pronounced on his features, yet he had the eyes of an idealist. He,
too, would choose restraint in preference to outbreak of emotion: he
too could be forcible if occasion of sufficient pressure lay upon
him. And the probability remained, that both one and the other would
choose a path of life where there was small risk of their stronger
faculties being demanded.

They talked of the landscape, of that exclusively, until Mrs.
Ormonde's carriage was seen reascending the hill. Then they became
silent, and stood so as their common friend drew near. Her
astonishment was not slight, but she gave it only momentary
expression, then passed on to general talk.

'I always regard you as reasonably emancipated, Annabel,' she said,
'but none the less I felt a certain surprise in noticing you
intimately conversing with a chance wayfarer. Mr. Egremont, be good
enough to seat yourself opposite to us.'

They drove back to Eastbourne. All conversed on the way with as much
ease as if they had this afternoon set forth in company from The
Chestnuts.

'A welcome one, too, I should think,' Mrs. Ormonde replied. 'But you
always calculated distances by 'walks,' I remember, when others
measure by the carriage or the railway. Annabel, you too are an
excellent walker; you have often brought me to extremities in the
lakes, though I wouldn't confess it. And pray, Mr. Egremont, for
whom was your visit intended? Shall I put you down at Mr.
Newthorpe's door, or had you my humble house in view?'

'It is natural to me to count upon The Chestnuts as a place of rest,
at all events,' Walter replied. 'I should not have ventured to
disturb Mr. Newthorpe this evening.'

'We will wait at the door, Mrs. Ormonde,' put in Annabel. 'Father
will come out as he always does.'

Accordingly the carriage was stopped at the Newthorpes' house, and,
as Annabel had predicted, her father sauntered forth.

'Ah, how do you do, Egremont?' he said, after a scarcely appreciable
hesitation, giving his hand with perfect self-possession. 'Turned up
on the road, have you?'

The ladies laughed. Annabel left the carriage, and the other two
drove on to The Chestnuts.

Egremont dined and spent the evening with Mrs. Ormonde. Their
conversation was long and intimate, yet it was some time before
reference was made to the subject both had most distinctly in mind.

'I went to see Grail as soon as I got to London,' Egremont said at
length.

'They gave me his address at the old house. He seems comfortably
lodged with his friend Ackroyd. Mrs. Ackroyd opened the door to me;
of course I didn't know her, and she wouldn't know me; Grail told me
who it was afterwards. I could recall no likeness to her sister.'

'There is very little. The poor girl is in calm water at last, I
hope. She was to have been married on Midsummer Day, and, the night
before, Mrs. Grail died; so they put it off. And what of Mr. Grail?'

'He behaved admirably to me; he did not let me feel for a moment
that I excited any trouble in his memory.'

'I can't think he finds it so. He spoke very frankly, and assured me
that he has all the leisure time he cared to use. He says he is not
so eager after knowledge as formerly; it is enough for him to read
the books he likes. I went with the intention of asking him to let
me be of some use, if I could. But it was a delicate matter, in any
case, and I found that he understood me without plain speech: he
conveyed his answer distinctly enough. No, I sincerely think that he
has reached that point of resignation at which a man dreads to be
disturbed. He spoke with emotion of Mrs. Ackroyd; she is invaluable
to him, I saw.'

She went and returned quickly, carrying a red crayon drawing framed
in plain oak. In the corner was a well-known signature, that of one
of the few living artists to whom one would appeal with confidence
for the execution of a task such as this, a man whom success has not
vulgarised, and who is still of opinion that the true artist will
oftener find his inspiration in a London garret than amid the
banality of the plutocrat's drawing-room. The work was of course
masterly in execution; it was no less admirable as a portrait. In
those few lines of chalk, Thyrza lived. He had divined the secret of
the girl's soul, that gift of passionate imagination which in her
early years sunk her in hour-long reverie, and later burned her life
away. The mood embodied was one so characteristic of Thyrza that one
marvelled at the insight which had evoked it from a dead face; she
was not happy, she was net downcast; her eyes saw something,
something which stirred her being, something for which she yearned,
passionately, yet with knowledge that it was for ever forbidden to
her. A face of infinite pathos, which drew tears to the eyes, yet
was unutterably sweet to gaze upon.

Holding the picture, Egremont turned to his companion, and said in a
subdued voice

'The bare facts, of course without names, without details. He would
take nothing for the original drawing--Lydia has it--and nothing
for this copy which he made me. He said I had done him a great
kindness.'

Mrs. Ormonde bore the picture away. In a few minutes Egremont took
his leave, and went to the hotel to which he had sent his
travelling-bag from Brighton. It was long before he slept. He was
thinking of a night a little more than a year ago, when he had
walked by the shore and held debate with himself. . . .

On the following evening, shortly before sunset, Annabel and he
walked on the short dry grass of the Down that rises to Beachy Head.
There had been another day of supreme tranquillity, of blurred
sunshine, of soothing autumnal warmth. And this was the crowning
hour. The mist had drifted from the land and the sea; as the two
continued their ascent, the view became lovelier. They regarded it,
but spoke of other things.

'I have no wish to go back to America,' Egremont was saying, 'but,
if I do, I shall very likely settle there for good. I don't think I
am ideally adapted to a pursuit of that kind, but habit makes it
quite tolerable.'

'What should you do if you remained in England?' Annabel asked, her
voice implying no more than friendly interest.

'I might say that I don't know, but it wouldn't be true. I know well
enough I should live the life of a student, and of a man who looks
on contemporary things with an artistic interest, though he lacks
the artistic power to use his observations. In time I should marry.
I should have pleasure in my house, should make it as beautiful as
might be, should gather a very few friends about me. I should not
become morbid; the danger of that is over. Every opportunity I saw
of helping those less fortunate than myself I should gladly seize;
it is not impossible that I might seek opportunities, that I might
found some institution--of quite commonplace aims, be assured. For
instance, I should like to see other Homes like Mrs. Ormonde's; many
women could conduct them, if the means were supplied. And so on.'

'Yes, that is all very reasonable. It lies with yourself to decide
whether you might not have a breezier existence in America.'

'True. But not with myself to decide whether I remain here or go
back again. I ask you to help me in determining that.'

Annabel stood as one who reflects gravely yet collectedly. Egremont
fixed his eyes upon her, until she looked at him then his gaze
questioned silently.

'Let us understand each other,' said Annabel. 'Do you say this
because of anything that has been in the past?'

'Yet we are both very different from what we were when that
happened.'

'Both, I think. I do not speak now as I did then, yet the wish I
have is far more real.'

They were more than half-way up the ascent; it was after sunset, and
the mood of the season was changing.

The plain of Pevensey lay like a vision of fairyland, the colouring
indescribably delicate, unreal; bands of dark green alternated with
the palest and most translucent emeralds. The long stretch of the
coast was a faint outline, yet so clear that every tongue of sand,
every smallest headland was distinguishable. The sky that rested on
the eastern semicircle of horizon was rather neutral tint than blue,
and in it hung long clouds of the colour of faded daffodils. A
glance overhead gave the reason of this wondrous effect of light;
there, and away to the west, brooded a vast black storm-cloud,
ragged at the edge, yet seeming motionless; the western sea was very
night, its gloom intensified by one slip of silver shimmer, wherein
a sail was revealed. The hillside immediately in front of those who
stood here was so deeply shadowed that its contrast threw the vision
of unearthly light into distance immeasurable. A wind was rising,
but, though its low whistling sound was very audible, it seemed to
be in the upper air; here scarcely a breath was felt.

'She could not have lived. But you are conscious now of what that
face means?'

'I know nothing of her history from the day when I last saw her,
except the mere outward circumstances.'

'Nor do I. But I saw her once, here, and I have seen her portrait.
The crisis of your life was there. There was your one great
opportunity, and you let it pass. She could not have lived; but that
is no matter. You were tried, Mr. Egremont, and found Wanting.'

'Her love for me did not continue. It was already too late at the
end of those two years.

They were silent. And as they stood thus the sky was again
transformed. A steady yet soft wind from the northwest was
propelling the great black cloud seaward, over to France; it moved
in a solid mass, its ragged edges little by little broken off, its
bulk detached from the night which lay behind it. And in the sky
which it disclosed rose as it were a pale dawn, the restored
twilight. Thereamid glimmered the pole-star.

Eastward on the coast, at the far end of Pevensey Bay, the lights of
Hastings began to twinkle; out at sea was visible a single gleam,
appearing and disappearing, the lightship on the Sovereign Shoals.

'We have both missed something, something that will never again he
offered us. When you asked me to be your wife, four years ago at
Ullswater, I did not love you. I admired you; I liked you; it would
have been very possible to me to marry you. But I had my ideal of
love, and I hoped to give my husband something more than I felt for
you at that time. A year after, I loved you. I suffered when you
were suffering. I was envious of the love you gave to another woman,
and I said to myself that the moment I hoped for had come only in
vain. Since then I have changed more than I changed in those twelve
months. I am not in love with you now; I can talk of these things
without a flutter of the pulse. Is it not true?'

She held her hand to him, baring the wrist. Egremont retained the
hand in both his own.

'I can tell you, you see,' she went on, 'what I know to be the
truth, that you missed the great opportunity of your life when you
abandoned Thyrza. Her love would have made of you what mine never
could, even though she herself had been taken from you very soon. I
can tell you the mere truth, you see. Dare you still ask for me?'